United Parcel Service (UPS) – my Peter Lynch-type stock idea – #UPSEver since COVID, I have ordered most products to my home. Returns have been difficult and time-consuming, depending on the vendor. Yesterday, I experienced the most easy, fast, and convenient way to ship returns that I have ever used!. I contacted the seller saying I needed to return an item. One return choice was to use “Happy Returns” and take the item to United Parcel Service (UPS). The seller sent a code to my phone; I took my wrapped return product to a UPS store; the clerk snapped a photo of the code on my phone and printed and affixed the return label to my package, then gave me a receipt. No money changed hands. This took only a few seconds, and I was out the door. I wish every merchant used Happy Returns! (If I had not had packaged the item, UPS would have done it.)
The advantages of Happy Returns are: (1) I didn’t have to print a return label; (2) I didn’t have to package my return item (although I did); (3) Happy Returns sent an email to me which contained a full description of my purchase, price, order number, dates, and photo; and (4) as a security “test.” I tapped the correct photo of my item on the UPS computer screen, which only took one second.
Three customers came into UPS after I did. We all walked in and out almost immediately. I exclaimed how efficient the process was, and the UPS clerk replied, “Yes, a lot more people are coming in than before.” At home, I discovered that UPS had purchased Happy Returns by the 21 December 2023, Forbes.com article, “Holiday Returns Made Easy with UPS Acquisition of Happy Returns.”.
Peter Lynch said to buy stocks of things you knew about and liked. Yes, I heard him speak – I’m in my 80’s. UPS stock price is now near its low. I bought 2 shares. What do you think of UPS? #UPS
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Happy Returns sounds like a great service. Unfortunately, as large as UPS is, they’re toward the bottom end of their industry. I’m going to keep an eye on on UPS. Their service can only grow, especially with more people ordering online goods as inner-city stores are increasingly closing down due to high crime. Sounds bizarre but I wonder when Amazon might try to buy the company.
Amazon has effectively built its own UPS/Fedex-sized delivery system over the past decade, an amazingly fast infrastructure buildout. I agree that UPS is pretty appealing, since nobody other than Amazon will probably ever even try to mimic their delivery network, and they have done a decent job of leveraging the UPS Store network, too, though that’s still a small part of the business (“e-commerce in general” is the big driver, but they also handle a ton of wholesale logistics for retailers). They’ve got a great return on equity, debt seems pretty manageable, and they still have some growth potential, but they’ve recently not done as well as investors expected. Pre-COVID they mostly traded at close to 20X earnings, so they’re arguably on the cheap side of their historical valuation range now.
Haven’t looked at UPS in a while, but it’s good to see the price coming down to a reasonable range again — maybe it’s time for some more research.